“Oh, yes!” said Mary Bell, sick with one more disappointment.

“Well,” pursued Johnnie, “they had dinner here, and come t’ talk it over, Lizzie was wild to go, and Ed got Walt all worked up, and nothing would do but we must get out our old carryall, and take their Thelma and my Maxine along!  Well, laugh—­we were like a lot of kids!  I’m crazy to dance just once in Pitcher’s barn.  We’re going up early, and have our supper up there.”

“We’re going to do that, too,” said Ellen, with pleasant anticipation.  “Ma and I always help set tables, and so on!  It’s lots of fun!”

Mary Bell’s face grew sober as she listened.  It would be fun to be one of the gay party in the big barn, in the twilight, and to have her share of the unpacking and arranging, and the excitement of arriving wagons and groups.  The great supper of cold chicken and boiled eggs and fruit and pickles, the fifty varieties of cake, would be spread downstairs; and upstairs the musicians would be tuning their instruments as early as seven o’clock, and the eager boys and girls trying their steps, and changing cards.  And then there would be feasting and laughing and talking, and, above all, dancing until dawn!

“Beg pardon, Johnnie?” she stammered.

“Well, looks like some one round here is in love, or something!” said Johnnie, freshly.  “I never had it that bad, did you, Ellen?  Ellen’s been telling me how you’re fixed, Mary Bell,” she went on with deep concern, “and I was suggestin’ that you run over to the general store, and ask Mis’ Rowe—­or I should say, Mis’ Bates,” she corrected herself with a grin, and the girls laughed—­“if she won’t sleep at your house tonight.  Chess’ll tend store.  It’ll be something fierce if you don’t go, Mary Bell, so you run along and ask the bride!” laughed Johnnie.

“I believe I would,” approved Ellen, and the girls accordingly crossed the grassy, uneven street to the store.

An immense gray-haired woman was in the doorway.

“Well, is it ribbon or stockings, or what?” said she, smiling.  “The place has gone crazy!  There ain’t going to be a soul here but me to-night.”

Mary Bell was silent.  Ellen spoke.

“Chess ain’t going, is he?” she asked.

The old woman shook with laughter.

“Chess ain’t nothing but a regular kid,” she said.  “He was dying to go, but he knew I couldn’t, and he never said a word.  Finally, my boy Tom and his wife, and Len and Josie and the children, they all drove by on their way to Pitcher’s; and Len—­he’s a good deal older’n Chess, you know—­he says to me, ’You’d oughter leave Chess come along with the rest of us, ma; jest because he’s married ain’t no reason he’s forgot how to dance!’ Well, I burst right out laughing, and I says, ‘Why didn’t he say he wanted to go?’ and Chess run upstairs for his other suit, and off they all went!”

There was nothing for it, then, but to wait for Lew Dinwoodie and the news from Aunt Mat.